Jihadists overrun Iraq's second city of Mosul and string of Sunni Arab northern towns on Tuesday. Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki asks parliament to declare state of emergency and announces government to arm citizens to fight jihadists and their allies. "All of Nineveh province fell into hands of militants," parliament speaker Osama al-Nujaifi says to journalists in Baghdad. Gunmen are heading south towards neighboring Salaheddin province, he adds.

Hundreds of militants from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) launched a major assault on the security forces late on Monday, an army brigadier general said to AFP.Mosul, the scene of deadly clashes on Friday and Saturday, was "outside the control of the state and at the mercy of the militants," an interior ministry official said.Soldiers and police had stripped off their uniforms and fled, and the militants used loudspeakers to declare they had "come to liberate" the city of some two million people.Hundreds of families were seen fleeing. Some were on foot, carrying what they could, others in vehicles with their belongings piled on the roofs.The militants seized the provincial government headquarters and the Nineveh Operations Command as well as the airport, the army general said. They also freed hundreds of prisoners from three jails.The Turkish consulate in Mosul said ISIL fighters had captured 28 Turkish truck drivers. A foreign ministry official said Ankara hoped they would be released once they finished unloading fuel oil at a power station.Maliki said the cabinet had decided to reorganize the security forces, arm citizens and to ask parliament to impose emergency rule. It had "created a special crisis cell to follow up on the process of volunteering and equipping and arming", the premier said. State television said parliament had received a joint request from Maliki and the president's office to declare a state of emergency.Predominantly Sunni Nineveh province, of which Mosul is the capital, has long been a militant stronghold and one of Iraq's most dangerous areas. ISIL, the most powerful militant group in Iraq, is also a key force in the rebellion against President Bashar al-Assad in neighboring Syria.In April, it launched a campaign in Syria's Deir Ezzor province, which borders Nineveh, aimed at carving out an Islamic state. The group said it was behind the assault in Nineveh in messages on Twitter. Mosul is the second city to fall from government control this year. Anti-government fighters also control Fallujah, west of Baghdad.UN chief Ban Ki-moon was "gravely concerned by the serious deteriorating of the security situation in Mosul," his spokesman said. ISIL militants also took a string of mainly Sunni Arab towns in ethnically mixed Kirkuk province, which borders Nineveh, police Colonel Ahmed Taha said.Violence also struck other areas of Iraq on Tuesday. In Baquba, two bombs killed 20 people near a funeral procession for a slain teacher. And in Baghdad, 11 people died in attacks. Violence is running at its highest levels since 2006-2007, when tens of thousands were killed in clashes between Iraq's Shiite majority and Sunni Arab minority.Read more: http://voiceofrussia.com/news/2014_06_11/Iraqs-second-city-seized-dy-Jihadists-4220/

Tikrit fall to ISIS and ISIS now make advance to Samara. Iraqi army is now retreating from Falluja to defend Bagdad.

i think we might soon have a syria civil war scenario in Iraq too

Absolutely. I personally doubt ISIS capture US helicopters, but who knows, if CIA doesn't have their secret teams in Iraq. I think we will have to wait for actual confirmation, that ISIS capture helicopters.

The terrorist organization of ISIS supported by the US/EU and Petro-Dollar States of the Gulf seized heavy weaponry from the Iraqi army storage. Including Soviet made Kub anti air systems. The missiles according to several reports have reached the Syrian soil, no reports of ISIS taking control of any radars, only the missiles and the launch platform. This shameful act of silence from the international committee toward their supporting states makes the international committee nothing but a partner of ISIS.We will use any necessary force to protect our homeland, and maybe more. The Syrian Armed Forces and The Iraqi Armed Forces are now one, fighting the same war.Our battle with ISIS haven`t started yet, for strategic reasons that we will not disclose at the moment. But when that battle start, NO ONE should lecture us about human right, because those terrorist scum lost every right to be treated like humans when they came to our homeland, and we will deal with them with whatever necessary force we think is suitable.

Cyberspec wrote:Iraq should probably coordinate more closely with Iran and Syria

And Algeria and Egypt; President Sisi kicked Morsi out of power because he (Mohamed Morsi) wanted Egypt to become a Islamic State and because he wanted the Egyptian army to attack Syria so that the Jihadists could win!

Exactly what I was thinking, whether Egypt will get involved.It is scary that I haven't heard of these weapons depots being bombed, leaving them in AQ hands.A good amount sounds to have been abandoned where it was deployed, but at least the concentrations in depots could have been efficiently destroyed from air.

Iraqi Army Regains Control over Tikrit, Repels ISIL Assault on Samarra

The Iraqi army regained its control over the city of Tikrit after crushing ISIL terrorists, Iraqi media outlets reported.

The Iraqi troops are still chasing ISIL terrorists in the province, according to the media reports.

The Iraqi defense ministry issued a statement in which it asserted that the army regained control over Tikrit and vowed to strike ISIL terrorists in Mosul in order to impose the governmental authority in the city.

ISIL militants had taken control of the Iraqi city of Tikrit and freed hundreds of prisoners on Wednesday, police said.

According to AFP, Iraqi security forces repelled an assault by militants Wednesday on the highly sensitive city of Samarra.

Kurdish forces are in full control of Iraq's oil-rich city of Kirkuk after the federal Iraqi army abandoned its bases there, a Kurdish military spokesman said on Thursday. Kirkuk is a city located at the heart of a long-running dispute between the federal government in Baghdad and the Kurds, who run their own autonomous region in the north of the country and have an armed militia called the "peshmerga".

"The whole of Kirkuk has fallen into the hands of peshmerga," said Jabbar Yawar, referring to the Kurdish forces. "No Iraqi army remains in Kirkuk now".

The move came after Iraqi soldiers fled their posts in the city of Mosul and several other towns and cities in the face of an onslaught by radical Sunni insurgents from the Islamic State in Iraqand the Levant (ISIL).

ISIL said in a statement it was now advancing on Baghdad.

US mulls air strikes on Iraqi rebels as militants advance on Baghdad

Militants have seized the Iraqi city of Tikrit as a jihadist offensive sweeps closer to Baghdad, prompting the UN Security Council to convene crisis talks Thursday while the US mulls air strikes on the rebels. The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) seized the second city of Mosul on Tuesday and has since captured a large swathe of northern and north-central Iraq including Tikrit - the hometown of executed dictator Saddam Hussein.

ISIL spokesman Abu Mohammed al-Adnani promised the battle would "rage" on the capital Baghdad and Karbala, a city southwest of the capital that is considered one of the holiest sites for Shiite Muslims, the SITE Intelligence Group said.

The UN Security Council swiftly convened a meeting to discuss the crisis in a sign of growing international alarm at the fast-moving situation.Read more: http://voiceofrussia.com/news/2014_06_12/Kurds-in-full-control-of-oil-city-Kirkuk-after-Iraqi-army-flees-1176/

PS I think this is one of the chances eastern countries have to dethrone US hegemony. If China thinks she is ready this is the right chance to give a hand.I think she will do nothing because nobody is yet ready, but this means that extra time and patience and effort will be needed until parity (let alone superiority) established.

Iraq conflict: Sistani 'issues' Shia call to arms against militantsIraq's most senior Shia cleric has issued a call to arms as Sunni-led insurgents sweep across towns.

BBC wrote:The call by a representative of Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani came during Friday prayers, as the militants widened their grip in the north and east and threatened to march south.The UN says hundreds have been killed - with militants carrying out summary executions of civilians in Mosul.The US and Iran have promised to help the fight against the insurgency.